


The Limit Does Not Exist

by Mandaloria593



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e07 The Believer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28015785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandaloria593/pseuds/Mandaloria593
Summary: Din couldn’t stop and think about it.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 217





	The Limit Does Not Exist

**Author's Note:**

> At first this was just a Mean Girls joke taken too far, but then it turned into a Post-Chapter 15 free write. SPOILERS ABOUND.

Din couldn’t stop and think about it. 

If he did that, he might have second thoughts . . . and third thoughts . . . and fourth, until he broke. And that wouldn’t save the kid.

_His_ kid.

Grogu.

Mayfeld was right.

How Din hated the notion. Even thinking it was distasteful: _Mayfeld was right_. The phrase didn’t roll pleasantly around the ear. It rankled. It slithered around his thoughts like a snake, venom poised to strike at his vulnerable, barefaced . . . face. His _face._ Which the Imps got first. They took it from him like they take everything--before, his parents and his home, now, his child and his creed. 

_Mayfeld was right._ A bitter truth. 

How many lines would he cross for his kid?

As many as he had to.

The limit did not exist.

*******

He should take it off. 

(No, it doesn’t matter.)

He should tell Cara. 

(She would understand.)

Restless, he goes to the cockpit and watches Fett handle the controls of the Slave I. Fett is not wearing the helmet now. Fett does not follow the creed. Fett is Mandalorian. Bo-Katan . . . 

_Stop thinking._

The mission will go forward as planned. 

Din enjoys recording his message to Gideon. He takes savage pleasure in spitting Gideon’s words back at him. 

_Grogu. Grogu. Grogu._

Din focuses on his breathing. In and out. In and out. He readies his weaponry. The routine is so rote as to be performed by mechanical muscle memory alone, as if he is just a droid. It is both disturbing and comforting. 

The cuirass feels heavier than the Imp armor. Comforting.

The whistling birds are charged and primed for deployment. Comforting. 

The beskar spear feels strong in his grip. Comforting. 

The helmet sits not-quite-right on his nose. Disturbing. 

And false. A figment of Din’s imagination that he must viciously quash. It fits as well as it always has. It is still his. Still _him_. He did what he had to do. 

Mayfeld was right.

But Mayfeld was also wrong.

Because it didn’t matter that everyone who’d seen him was dead. (Except Mayfeld, who was out there now, making his way in the universe while carrying a piece of Din with him--a piece Din hadn’t intended to share, but what’s done is done, and Mayfeld could have been a jerk about it but surprisingly wasn’t. And Din carried something of him, too; Mayfeld’s attempt to distract the superior officer from Din had devolved into something real and raw. A bloody past, present, and future.) 

Whether those who’d seen his face were dead wasn’t the point. (Although Din was satisfied with their deaths and didn’t regret Mayfeld’s interpretation.) The creed wasn’t about others; it was about Din. Din’s commitment to the creed. 

Din was still a committed person. 

He was committed to Gideon’s destruction. Committed to Grogu’s return. 

That fateful day on Nevarro when he’d gone back to retrieve the little green being had been the start of the _shift_. It triggered a reshuffling of priorities, like a slight rebalancing of his weight from foot to foot. Or had it been inevitable? And if not Grogu then the next bounty or the next after that, and his path was always meant to diverge? To splinter.

No, not a splintering. A congealing. A shoring up. A recommitment.

_I’m coming, Grogu._

Grogu was not replaceable. If not for him, then Din would have kept on as he had been indefinitely. To others, Grogu was just cute. They thought Din was just endeared of him. But those who thought that Grogu could have been anything or anyone were wrong. Grogu was _Grogu_. And something bound them together. (A clan of two.) Something Din couldn’t explain and wouldn’t try to. _His kid._ That should suffice. That is all anyone needed to know to understand the depth of Din’s commitment. Grogu was his kid, and the limit did not exist. 

He shouldn’t be so gleeful about the prospect of ramming the beskar spear into Gideon’s heart. The bloodlust was necessary but not laudable. 

But then nothing about what Din had done today had been worthy of praise. (And oh how the stormtroopers’ hero’s welcome affronted him.) But he did what he had to do. He crossed the lines he had to cross. And he wasn’t going to think about it. Not today. Maybe not ever, because he’d die before giving up on Grogu, and he might die later today. But dying was easier than what he’d already done today. Mandalorians knew how to die. They were good at it. It was honorable. 

Din couldn’t die, because Grogu needed him. The pressure of this realization wasn’t upsetting. It didn’t freeze him into inaction or plague his mind with doubt. He’d already made the commitment, and knowing Grogu needed him bolstered him. Made him feel invincible. His message to Gideon wasn’t a bluff. The limit did not exist.

_I’m coming,_ _Grogu_. _Be strong_. 

If Din could close his eyes, search with his feelings, and somehow send that message to Grogu then he would do it. The Force. The energy field that Ahsoka said surrounded every living being. Din couldn’t tap into it. (Didn’t want to.) But he would do it for his kid, if he could. (He’d tried, just once, when trying to get Grogu to practice his telekinesis. The metal ball wouldn’t come to _Din’s_ hands.) Din would do anything within his power. And if he lacked the power, he would find a way to get it--just like he’d collected the people and resources he needed to rescue Grogu. 

This was going to work. 

The plan would succeed.

Din was invincible. (Not diminished.)

The limit did not exist.

_Grogu, I’m coming._


End file.
